


Drake's Teeth

by Law971



Series: Laele Xalyth [4]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Rowdy Boiz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-21 16:03:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21284261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Law971/pseuds/Law971
Summary: Just my quick scribbles about my D&D character in the campaign I play in. None of it is redrafted or beta'd. Please ignore!Chance meeting w/ Dres + Father-Daughter catch up
Series: Laele Xalyth [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543777
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the Rowdy Boiz sail on the Gold Liberator, arriving at the Drake's Teeth.

“Captain, not to alarm you but I think Laele just walked in the door.”  
At Marcus’ words, Dresdiin swung round to face the entrance, heartbeat quickening in his chest. For three months he’d been fighting a rising uncertainty that grew the longer he went without word of his daughter’s fate. But sure enough, gesturing _wait here_ to her companions was Laele Xalyth; just as she'd been last he'd seen her; her mother's spitting image. He rose from his seat, and the crew sitting nearby quietened in confusion followed quickly by surprise. Marcus stood beside him, looking on in disbelief and mild concern.__  
“Captain, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”  
Dres stepped forward, just as Laele began walking steadily in their direction, relief nearly choking him. “I think I just have.”  
“Do you want me to check if it’s really her? If she’s…real?” Marcus questioned, magic dancing at his fingertips.  
Dres shook his head, just as Laele finally reached them. “I’ll check for myself.”  
There was something hard and unreadable in her expression; a fading bruise along her cheek. But her mouth pulled to the side in a familiar smirk, and her eyes (amber eyes; Faeryl’s eyes) were bright with delighted surprise.  
“Hello father.”

_ __ _

“I didn’t even know if you were alive.” Dres admitted, unable to completely hide the slight accusation in his voice. His daughter’s expression softened, guilt flashing across her face chased by something he couldn’t identify. “Where have you been? I heard about the others you were working with… heard Pratter strung them up. I feared –”  
“I’d left word in Bilgewater when I left,” Laele said. “I decided to head up north. Visit the mountains for a bit.”  
“The mountains? Why, by all the gods, were you in the mountains? You’re not built for it up there, Laele!”  
His daughter grimaced, tracing her right wrist with her other hand as though feeling something under the sleeve. Dres caught the unconscious movement and frowned, but Laele spoke before he could voice another question.  
“I am aware. But I needed somewhere out of Pratter’s reach and…well, where better to lay low than miles north?”  
“How did you come to be here then?”  
“I’m sailing with Captain Jenkins on the Gold Liberator. What can I say? I was given reason to return to sea.” She shook her head and smiled, then leaned forward steepling her fingers under her chin. “But what about you? How’s business?”  
Dres exchanged a glance with Marcus, who was still sitting silently with his food mostly uneaten in front of him. So far, he’d said barely a word to her - although Laele wasn’t entirely sure what to say either. Things had been awkward between them when she’d left the Avarice, a stilted silence that came from mistakes made in the dark between friends who should have known better, and an agreement to never tell the Captain what happened between his quartermaster and his daughter.  
The Captain, who answered her question with barely withheld delight. “Business… is excellent. We’ve been running a lot of jobs for The Fat Bastard recently. Pulling in a pretty sum.”  
“I’m very glad to hear it.”  
“I mean Randel will get his cut, of course…” Dres sneered faintly, his red eyes darkening. “Perhaps his cut will be in the form of our assistance in this bloody war.”  
Laele suddenly found a deep fascination with her drink.  
“Laele.”  
She took a sip, carefully avoiding her father’s piercing gaze. Marcus pricked up, leaning forward, staring.  
“Laele. Tell me you’re not part of this.”  
Laele gritted her teeth and smiled, sharp and dangerous. “What would you rather I told you?”  
“_Laele. _ What are you playing at? You shouldn’t be fighting someone else’s fucking war!”__  
She finally looked Dres dead in the eyes, anger blooming at the sheer hypocrisy.  
“Like you are?”  
Her father opened his mouth as if to argue, then closed it and shook his head. “_Laele._”__  
As they were talking, the waiters finished setting up an extra table joined to the Avarice’s, the Rowdy Boys sitting down awkwardly. Shol looked confused. Todorim glanced suspiciously between Laele and Dres, and Birdbeak was already digging enthusiastically into her sushi.  
“May I introduce my fellow crewmates on the Liberator: Shol, Todorim, and Birdbeak. Boys…this is Quartermaster Marcus Jones, and Captain Dresdiin Xalyth of The Night’s Avarice.”  
There it was, a look of realization from Shol and Tod.  
“Ah…good to meet you.”  
“Yeah, hi.”  
“Hahaha, all right.”  
Dres afforded them each a nod once over each, with a faintly raised eyebrow for Birdbeak. Marcus was frowning.  
Without warning, a flutter of colour slipped into existence on Laele’s shoulder, and she supressed the urge to jump as she recognised the parrot; Shaow, Marcus’ familiar. Birdbeak whipped out her crossbow, levelling it at the bird, and Laele held up her hand in warning.  
“Birdbeak, if you fire that thing at my head, I will personally pluck you!”  
Birdbeak grumbled under her breath but lowered her weapon.  
Laele scratched Shaow’s feathers gently, smiling at the familiar imp.  
“Shaow, it’s good to see you. I’m afraid Ladron is on an errand for the moment.”  
The imp screeched, leaning into her before fluttering off to their master. While the rest of the party returned to conversation in the background, Laele looked at Marcus, holding his eyes.  
“It’s good to see you again, Marcus.” She murmured.  
Marcus sighed, then smiled at her as Shaow pecked at his fingers.  
“It’s good to see you too, Laele.”


	2. Return to the Avarice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laele returns to the Avarice with Dresdiin at the Drake's Teeth islands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Generic building out of character relations, just some scribbles for fun

Returning to The Night’s Avarice felt like returning home.  
The ship hadn’t changed; dark wood and doors to the inner decks carved with interlocking chains. The Captain’s Quarters still filled with valuable trinkets, a veritable dragon’s hoard lining the shelves and chests surrounding the four-post bed and the desk and grand chair by the doors Laele knew led to a balcony at the back of the ship. She wandered over to the desk, as Dres closed the doors behind them, glancing over the contents on the surface. Papers detailing the Avarice’s latest acquisitions; a quill made from a gorgeous crimson feather; a titan coin made from gleaming black metal. At the sight of the coin, Laele slipped her hand into her pocket drawing out an identical coin of her own. It felt warm between her fingers. For a split-second, she could have sworn she could smell blood.  
“What’s the matter?”  
A dance over her knuckles, a child’s trick, and the coin vanished back into her pocket. She turned, facing Dres as he watched her with mild concern.  
_How strange_, Laele thought, suddenly. ___How strange that I still feel like a child whenever I return here.___  
“Nothing at all,” She replied aloud. “Simply…reminiscing.”  
“Hm.” The drow captain joined her by the desk, running ringed fingers across the back of the chair. “I enjoyed your tales from earlier. About castles, and goblins, and humans who believed they were dragons.”  
Laele leaned against the desk and smiled up at her father. She felt…comfortable. Safe for the first time in months.  
“But somehow, daughter…I don’t think you’re telling me the full story.”  
Quick as a viper Dres grabbed her wrist, pulling it towards him. Caught off-guard, Laele could do nothing to stop him as he pushed her sleeve back, revealing the faint, barely healed marks still circling her wrist. Marks easily identifiable by anyone who frequently dealt in chains. Manacles.  
For a drawn-out moment, there was a silence, heavy and threatening, a storm about to break. Then-  
“Laele.”  
For the second time that evening, Laele found herself unable to meet her father’s eyes. She stared down, past her exposed arm, searching for patterns in the floorboards instead.  
“_Laele Xalyth._ Look at me.”________  
Gradually, reluctantly, she raised her head from the floor, still unable to look directly at his face.  
“_Who did this?_”__  
She cleared her throat, trying to control her voice as she spoke. “Well, as it turns out, the Xalyth name has become famous for piracy even in the mountains bordering Orsimer.” Too high, her voice was too high. She tried to correct it, continuing, “Someone let slip that I was from Bilgewater along with my full name and a mention of the Cuervos…and well, the Baron’s men didn’t like that.”  
Dres’ grip tightened on her arm, and she finally dared to look at him face on. His expression was filled with a barely controlled fury, a simmering violence that she found comforted her more than anything else could.  
His eyes were now bright with anger, jaw set. “What else did they –”  
“Nothing.” Laele cut him off, bringing her free hand up and gently loosening his from its now painful grip over the marks. “I talked my way out of it, and they pardoned me of all charges.” She fought to keep her emotions from her face in her chest, despite that residual fear over what had occurred. That she’d fled the King’s bullshit justice in Bilgewater only to fall to the same pitfall in Hearthstead. She could still feel that burning anger at her helplessness to save Tatan as she was killed barely 10 feet in front of her, an echo of her same failure to save Meran and Osdeyr before.  
Dres opened his mouth again, likely to press the point, only to be interrupted by a muted flash as a parrot appeared between them.  
“Captain.” The sound of Marcus’ voice coming from Shaow’s beak was something she never get used to, Laele mused. It was just that little bit too disconcerting.  
“Yes, Marcus?”  
“I’d like to request funds to rent the top floor of the Drake’s Tooth. Something to boost morale, you know? I just think-…”  
Laele tuned out from Marcus’s sales pitch, amused by his bargaining. Her father had a deep fondness for his ward, but he’d rarely admit it. She offered a wave goodbye as Shaow, and by extension Marcus, disappeared, having procured the permission and half the funds he needed.  
As Dres turned back to face her, Laele cut him off before he could return to the previous topic by pulling out her deck of cards and setting them atop the papers on the desk.  
“Play a game with me, Father. It’s been a while since I played against an opponent who actually provided a challenge.”


End file.
